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This actually happened to me over 2 years ago. I have been struggling ever since to find work in my same line of work ever since.

Anyway, to the short of it. I worked for a telecom company that was just getting its branch started off the ground here in my province. The company already had a manager, and employee. We worked together but we started getting more and more contracts. I was working 40,50,60 hours a week. In one year, I had driven 25,000 kms to do all the telecom installs for our clients. I was also experiencing depression..unknown to me. It was a part of the stress of the job, and untreated depression that was causing me to have mood swings at times..but mostly with other employees. It did not happen often, but the company really pushed us employees hard..as you can see with the Kms that I had driven that year.

Anyway, due to actions of other employees, or from me, we lost two to three contracts.

One, I should have left the client when she said she wanted to go home at 5 pm. I said, in a few min, I will be done. Well it was 30 min. She was ticked. She called the company, complained and well, we lost the contract.

Two, I was working with another employee. He seemed to not listen to me "I was in a senior position at the time" He was braking ceiling tiles with his aggressive push up the tiles to pull the cable. The client contractor "we were subcontracting" was complaining about the tiles. I left a small pile of ceiling tile debit on the carpet, thinking it was going to be vacuumed by the janitor. My boss asked me about this, and informed me, there is no such service. Opps, I did not really know. From that time, I cleaned up all the time. The contractor we did work for, threatened to fire us if we made more mistakes like this.The guy I worked with always left early..leaving ME to always doing the clean ups.

Third time, I was asked to install some LAN and Phone cables at a site for this same contractor, but we also had to drive 4 hours to another site AFTER that job and work another six hours. We rushed the job, I was getting stressed. The client we were asked to do work as his office was pissed why it had taken us 3 days to get to his company to do the job. I said we are really short on manpower, and that we had to go to another site four hours drive away and work another six hours. There was no exceptions. He was raging mad then he said thay were less important then the other contract client. Anyway, I do not even recall being rude to the secretary, but she complained. We lost the contract!

Forth time, I was working at a job site, We started working at 8 pm, and work all though the night. I AM NOT a night person. I should have turned down the job. Anyway, IBM Project managers were there IBM=EVIL EMPIRE" so they pushed us hard to test our company against another one who would get the contract! IBM PM's complained when I was running cable under the counter I said "What a mess" and also, about a missing cable that was not connected. I was a zombie at 3 am. Blood shot eyes. I was having a hard time concentrating. Anyway, I worked till 9 am the next morning. We almost lost the contract due to me! But we managed to win it. I was not put on the contract "thank god" to do. Bosses back at HQ were ticked, and did not want me on that project.

Fifth time,
My manager knocked down my hours. I was no longer working the 60 hours I had worked. Instead it was 30-35 hours because now, most of our jobs were at night at that one client that we won from IBM.

I was asked to goto a job site to compete against another contractor to see who can do the network install upgrade the fasest. BTW, I was not in the happiest of moods, considering my hours were knocked down.

Anyway, I arrived at this new contract prospect, which I was told was a competition against another contractor. Told the manager, we are here to do the network upgrade. She said, "I was never informed!!" I was thinking okay, this happens so I said the wrong thing ..kinda muttered to my self "that's to bad, but its got to be done..its been scheduled"

I never meant to say "that's to bad" as sarcasm, but she took it that way. she said, "can you wait, while I read the office?" I said sure. I waited outside.
She said come in. So the instructions in my work order said "call this phone number, and follow the install techs instructions to the T, you are timed to do this right the first time!". So did as she said on the phone, went to find the phone line in the office, to put a DSL splitter on the cable. The phone line was INSIDE the book case, behind the books. I found it, pulled it out, put on the splitter, and put it back. Pulling my hand back, I bumped into a milk or drink on the book case getting the books wet. Told the tech installer on the line, Opps, I spilled a drink, she said "ask some one to clean it, you are on a a time scedule, you need to get to the wiring closet to finish the job!" So I asked the manager if she could clean up the spilled drink on the book case. I finished the job and left the store.

When I was called into my bosses office, He wanted to know what happened. I said, I spilled a drink by accident, and asked the manager to clean it up. I was told the drink was on the desk, and I said no, its on the book shelf. So he said even though, I was a great worker, always got the job done right, He said the main boss back at HQ was terminating me. I was flabergastd. Yes, things did not work out the way thay should have, but fired???

BTW, there were other people who Quit, fired or what ever, because of the work load.

I really did work to the best of my abilities for this company. I was one of the most productive people with the company. I had also supervised people in the company but it was getting to be really stressful.

How should I lay out to my next employer how I was fired? My wife said I should explain it as miscommunication for the store manager not being informed, and the spilled drink incident. How can I put that in words? Last thing a employer wants to hear in a interview was "I was fired because I was rude and lost the contract"

BTW, as a side note, I did not know it at the time, I was suffering from depression and some anxiety issues. Seems it partly runs in the family and now I am on medication. My mood now is much better!!